Thursday, April 21, 2011

Charisma

This dude was on the up side of life. "Perky" and "chipper" aren't the right words, but he was... up. Alive. And alert.

"Well, hi, Alex. ... High five?"
I raised my hand toward him. (Because high fives seem much more friendly than the greeting handshakes.)

"Yeah! Low five... or high five... or something in the middle. Sorry, I'm slow."

He'd forgotten what a high five looked like for a second and tried to recover.

He asked if I needed anything -I didn't- then went off in search of the tech guys to push his brand.
Cool.
He came back to me about a half hour later.
"Everyone's busy," he said.
"But I'm not!"
"Well cool! Here!" He laid something down on my counter. "It's a bribe to get you to sell more HP. It's hand sanitizer spray. Or mace. Just spray it in the face of someone you don't like."

We laughed, then he continued.

"Really, though, when a customer comes by, just throw some HP ink in their buggy. I mean, ring it up first, but just throw it in there. And when they say, 'What are you doing? I don't have an HP printer!' You can say, 'Oh really? Well we have some over here! You could buy one today!'"

I CRACKED UP.

Those of you who've heard my laugh know what I mean.

He begins again, "Yeah, throw a mouse in there. 'But I don't have a computer.' 'Oh, well we can sell one to you.'"

I hope you think this is funny, because I thought it was hilarious. He has to be an excellent salesman, because I wanted to push HP, not because I believed in the product, but because I wanted this guy to keep his job and keep amusing people along the way. It was an awesome time.

"So have people been buying a lot of HP ink today?" he asked.
"Yeah, actually. They buy a lot. But, I gotta be honest, a lady was in here earlier asking about our refurbished brand."
"Did you tell her it was crap?"

"Ha! No. I told her it was $13 cheaper! And then I told her about how they are sometimes defective, having gone through a manufacturer twice and all, and, if that happens, we refund her money toward the purchase of the real HP ink."

"Yeah, we don't want our cartridges to be refurbished by other manufacturers. In fact, the manufacturers don't like us because we're putting chips in our new inks that say they can't refurbish them. But, yeah, when people go for the refurbished cartridges, I tell them that they're crap. Well, Lindsay, I gotta go back to wherever I'm from, but have a good day, and sell HP!"